"Doesn't it? Have you read Keats' letters? He doubted."
"Only when he was in love with Fanny Brawne."
He paused abruptly. He was seized by an idea, a rushing irresistible idea that lifted him off his feet and whirled him suddenly into a region of light, tumultuous and profound. Keats was in love when he doubted. Could that be the explanation of his own misgiving?
"That," he said hastily, "that's another thing altogether. Any way, if you don't believe in yourself, you'll have some difficulty in making other people believe in you."
"And if other people do believe in you, before you believe in yourself?"
"Before? It might be done before, but not after. You may make a man conceited, but you can't give him back the conceit he had on Saturday, if he's lost it all by Monday."
"That means that you know you've written a beautiful thing and you only think you'll never write another."
"Perhaps it does." (He had to keep it up for the pleasure of hearing her say she believed in him.)
"Well, I don't suppose you will write another Helen in Leuce."
"I'm afraid not." He went on to tell her that the wonder was how he wrote the thing at all. It had been done anyhow, anywhere, in successive bursts or spasms of creative energy; the circumstances of his life (he referred to them with some diffidence) not being exactly favourable to sustained effort. "How did you feel about it?" he inquired.